UNESCO Latin America and Caribbean Regional Training Workshop on Emerging Pollutants in Water Resources

The UNESCO-IHP International Initiative on Water Quality (IIWQ) will organize the UNESCO Latin America and Caribbean Regional Training Workshop on Emerging Pollutants in Water Resources to take place in Campinas, Brazil, on 6 and 7 December 2018. The training workshop is co-hosted by the University of Campinas and the Brazilian Chemical Society, in collaboration with UNESCO Offices in Brasilia and Montevideo.

Good quality water is essential for sustaining human well-being, livelihoods and a healthy environment. The United Nations 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognize the central importance of improving and protecting the quality of world’s freshwater resources for sustainable development. The SDG 6 “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all” calls for immediate, oriented and global action (SDG Target 6.3) to “improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally”. The potential threat of the increasing water pollution by hazardous chemicals to human health and ecosystems is emphasized also in other SDGs—in particular, in SDG 3 (health) and SDG 12 (sustainable production and consumption)—which stress the urgent need to significantly reduce the release of hazardous chemicals to air, water and soil to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment.

The main objective of the training workshop is to build capacity for effective water quality management for the SDGs implementation, with particular focus on enhancing scientific and policy capacity on managing emerging pollutants, which include a wide range of new pollutants found in our water resources such as pharmaceuticals, personal care products, agricultural pesticides, microplastics, and household and industrial chemicals.

The specific objectives of the workshops are:
• To raise the importance of improving water quality and addressing emerging pollutants for the SDGs achievement on national and regional agendas;
• To provide the state-of-the-art scientific knowledge and information on emerging pollutants;
• To enhance understanding and awareness about emerging pollutants among stakeholders;
• To provide a platform for countries to build a regional collaboration network for sharing of experiences, lessons learned and good practices on emerging pollutants;
• To promote collaboration on emerging pollutants at the regional level, including opportunities to develop joint scientific programmes and research projects.

For this purpose, the training is designed to be holistic and comprehensive in terms of the content and depth of knowledge offered and covers a wide-range of topics, including: emerging pollutants in the context of the SDGs; sources and pathways of emerging pollutants; monitoring and assessment; technical solutions to reduce and control of emerging pollutants in wastewater; policy approaches to managing emerging pollutants; the socioeconomic dimension; and future research and policy priorities. In addition, the training is complemented by UNESCO-IHP International Initiative on Water Quality Case Studies on Emerging Pollutants, as well as by case studies from countries and regional organizations.

This training workshop is organized in the framework of the UNESCO-IHP International Initiative on Water Quality (IIWQ) flagship Project on “Emerging Pollutants in Wastewater Reuse in Developing Countries”, funded by Sweden. The project aims to support UNESCO Member States to strengthen their scientific, technical and policy capacities to manage human health and environmental risks caused by emerging pollutants in water and wastewater. The strengthening of these capacities of Member States will help improve water quality and wastewater management, including safe reuse of wastewater, and enhance water and food security.

The UNESCO-IHP International Initiative on Water Quality Regional Training Workshops on Emerging Pollutants have been organized in other regions such as in Africa, (Accra, Ghana, on 25-27 September 2018), Arab States (Amman, Jordan, on 20-22 November 2018) and Asia (Jakarta, Indonesia, on 27-29 November 2018).

For more information, please contact Ms Sarantuyaa Zandaryaa (s.zandaryaa@unesco.org).